


by the stars above i know we were in love

by venusplease



Series: Nyxtober 2020 [2]
Category: The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals - Team StarKid
Genre: Angst, Cemetery, Everyone is Dead, Gen, Nyxtober, This Is Sad, if charlotte survived the apotheosis au, no beta we die like fools, she's seeing a therapist and is mostly okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-10
Updated: 2020-10-10
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:07:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26921881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/venusplease/pseuds/venusplease
Summary: hatchetfield was nearly wiped out months ago. charlotte asked to go back to watch the perseids meteor shower. they let her, and she paid a visit to her friends.prompt: bones and comet[title: when the night is over-lord huron]
Relationships: Charlotte/Ted (The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals)
Series: Nyxtober 2020 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1956784
Comments: 9
Kudos: 24





	by the stars above i know we were in love

August tenth. Peak of the Perseids, and the day Charlotte had gone to watch them every year. 

The outskirts of Hatchetfield were unpopulated and therefore dark enough to see the sky. Even on a regular clear night, the stars were brilliant out here. They’re one of her favourite things, along with raspberry hot chocolate and being the little spoon. She decided to go to a specific spot this year, though.

The drive took her about forty minutes. She was now living in Clivesdale under a new name, so the drive took much longer than it did while she was still in Hatchetfield. At least she thinks so; she never had much cause to visit the cemetery before. For all she knew, the drive from one end of the city to outside of the other could have taken sixty minutes.

It wasn’t the most torturous forty minutes like she expected it to be. She played rain sounds and paid attention to each breath, thanking the universe for giving it to her. That was the exercise the therapist taught her. She used to hate each breath, wishing it belonged to any one of her dead friends instead. They labelled this as “concerning” but not “alarming”, meaning she didn’t have to be monitored. The last time she was monitored was two months ago, which was long enough that they could allow her to go. She thanks the universe for that, too.

She parked as close as she could to the gate. It hadn’t been locked for years. They didn’t want to re-lock it after everything happened, either, considering the number of people who would still want to visit loved ones. So she was granted free passage.

She held the small flashlight in her palm, its warm glow lighting a path in front of her. If she recalled correctly, they would be just left of-

Yes. Her breath hitched when she saw the first familiar name: Paul Matthews. She touched the headstone sadly, using it as a small support to take her farther. Right behind Paul was Bill, Alice right next to him. Beyond that was a row or two of teenagers, the birthdates on the headstones all mid-2000s. The dry dirt crunched under her feet as she walked. She resisted the urge to turn the rain sounds back on. She promised herself she’d be entirely present for this.

She shone the flashlight and caught a glimpse of a name she was told to forget: Charlotte Malloy. She wished she could forget. Next to that was the name that made her sick now: Samuel Malloy. She frowned at it, as if the man within could understand the expression. She turned back to her own grave. Dirt packed tightly, each letter carved into the stone with precision. She placed a hand to the earth. “Thank you for not putting me here,” she mumbled. Another thing they told her to say, this one after her most recent time in lockdown.

The dirt collected on her fingertips, but she didn’t mind. Perhaps it carried the memories of these people. She’d tell herself that it could. She stood and took a deep breath, walking to the grave behind hers and reading the next name: Theodore Richards. Upon having the realization that yes, this was real, tears flowed down her cheeks. She rushed to sit atop the grave, right in front of the headstone so she wouldn’t have to keep looking at it.

“Hi, baby. I miss you. A lot. I think about you when I can’t sleep, which is most of the time now. More often than it used to be, heh. I-” She swallowed the lump in her throat that was growing. She had to whisper to keep herself from wailing. “I couldn’t watch the meteor shower without you. I like tradition, you know. I’m not gonna let a silly thing like this get in the way.” She wiped her runny nose on her sleeve. The tears were flowing freely again, and she managed a pained smile. “I wish you knew how much I love you. I haven’t stopped. I don’t know if I can. You were special to me, and I hope I was special to you. I think I might have been. Hell of a thing, being special. I didn’t know how that felt for so long.” 

The flashlight began to flicker. The batteries were old, she knew that coming in. She used this as an excuse to sit in the dark. Once she turned it off, she looked up to the sky. Stars as beautiful as ever, meteors rushing across the darkness like ice dancers. She leaned up against the headstone and imagined it was really him. The night cradled her in its arms and the wind sang her a lullaby. She could have drifted off right there. She pulled her eyes open, though, not wanting to miss a moment of her tradition, even though it had changed so drastically.

The falling stars punctuated each breath that she thanked the universe for and wished she was still sharing with the man buried six feet beneath her.


End file.
